Pronephros

Pronephros, most primitive of the three vertebrate kidneys, active in the adults of some primitive fish (lampreys and hagfish), the embryos of more advanced fish, and the larvae of amphibians. It is a paired organ consisting of a series of nephrons that filter urine from both the pericardial cavity fluids via openings called nephrostomes and the bloodstream from the glomerulus. Cells of the nephron tubule may secrete nitrogenous wastes into the urine and reabsorb water and nutrients. Urine passes from the nephrons into one of two long tubes, the Wolffian ducts, which run along either side of the body cavity and empty into a bladderlike urogenital sinus.

In more advanced vertebrates the pronephros is the first kidney to develop in the embryo. Frequently nonfunctional, it is soon replaced (after 3 1/2 weeks in humans) by the mesonephros, which lacks nephrostomes and draws fluid from the glomerulus only.

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...vertebrates above the amphibians, the nephrostomes disappear (or are never formed), so that the tubule begins with the renal corpuscle. Parts of the kidney in vertebrates can be distinguished as the pronephros (most anteriorly, at the forelimb level), the mesonephros (in the midtrunk region), and the metanephros (in the pelvic region). The three sections of the kidney develop at different...

Vertebrates have made three experiments in kidney production: the pronephros, or earliest type; the mesonephros, or intermediate kidney; and the metanephros, or permanent kidney. All arise from the cellular plates called nephrotomes that connect somites with the mesodermal sheets that bound the body cavity. The vestigial pronephros is represented solely by several pairs of tubules; they join...

...of each tubule, subsequently becoming indented by the glomerulus. Eventually, the tubules usually lose their internal openings to the body cavity. The most anterior tubules of the archinephros (pronephros) usually degenerate in the adult.